World Chess (LSE: CHSS) and FIDE Apply for .chess — the Internet Infrastructure for a Sport of 600 Million

With FIDE, the sport’s governing body, the company applied for the word “chess” in ICANN’s first new-domain round since 2012 — a one-time chance to own the address layer of an entire sport

LONDON, Sept. 07, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Every sport runs on infrastructure nobody sees: ratings, titles, broadcast rights, the rulebook. World Chess (LSE: CHSS) has spent a decade building chess’s — the platform where FIDE-rated games are played online, the television league, the championship matches in New York and London. Today it announced the biggest piece yet. Together with the International Chess Federation (FIDE), World Chess has applied to ICANN to own .chess: the internet address of the game itself.

The window for this closes for years at a time. ICANN, which governs the internet’s naming system, last let anyone create a new extension in 2012 — the round that produced .google, .amazon, .app and .berlin. This summer it opened again for the first time in 14 years; more than 1,600 applicants lined up, and World Chess filed for the one word that matters to chess.

“This is infrastructure, in the most literal sense,” said Ilya Merenzon, chief executive of World Chess. “Titles tell you who a player is. Ratings tell you how good they are. .chess tells you, on the internet, that something is really chess — a real federation, a real club, a real tournament. Basketball owns .basketball. Rugby owns .rugby. Chess, with 600 million players, has been living in rented rooms. We applied to own the building.”

What it would mean. FIDE’s roughly 200 national federations would receive their names — coordinated by the federation, so none can fall into the wrong hands. Clubs, academies, arbiters, titled players, organisers, media and platforms would follow with verified names of their own.

Why investors should care. Domain extensions are among the internet’s most durable businesses: every name pays every year, and renews for years. Some 400 million domains are registered worldwide, growing 8 percent a year. World Chess would operate the .chess registry; FIDE endorses it, allocates federation names and shares in the revenue.

For World Chess, .chess would be an asset that every club, coach, tournament and player in the world has a reason to pay for — annually, for as long as they exist.

“Chess deserves its own place on the internet — one where a player, parent or sponsor can see at a glance that a domain is genuinely part of the game,” said Viswanathan Anand, interim president of FIDE and five-time world champion.

What happens next. ICANN publishes the full list of applied-for extensions in mid-October, then evaluates. .chess was filed as a community application on FIDE’s behalf, which gives the game priority if anyone else has asked for the same word. Names go on sale only after approval. Federations, clubs and players can join the mailing list to get alerts at worldchess.com/domains.

About World Chess

World Chess (LSE: CHSS) builds the infrastructure of chess. It is FIDE’s official commercial partner, runs worldchess.com — the platform for playing for a FIDE-recognized rating online — and Armageddon, the chess league for television, and organised the World Championship matches in New York and London. worldchess.com

Media Contact
Ilya Merenzon
merenzon@worldchess.com